I think most people who actually followed the link wouldn't believe them either. From TFA: "...Bluetooth...is permitted, for 'Blue was the color of the eyes of our savior Jesus Christ'."
Because when B&N's Nook came out, nobody talked about changing e-book prices. They sold at $9.99 everywhere, mostly because that's what Amazon said e-books should sell at. Publishers got the same cut they always do with this pricing, and Amazon took a bigger loss than on print books. But Amazon liked this pricing because it's a loss leader for them to sell Kindles.
Macmillan (along with other publishers) was concerned that $9.99 was unsustainable in the long run, yet would become the "normal" price for e-books if unchecked. They wanted a deal where publishers chose e-book prices (usually in a range from $5.99-$14.99), and the sellers (Amazon, Apple, etc.) got a larger cut. Apple said, "Sure." Amazon said, "No way," and just to show Macmillan who was boss, Amazon pulled the Buy buttons off of all Macmillan products, digital and print. That was 1.5 months ago.
Amazon eventually caved and said they would put the Buy buttons back (which they did, but very slowly; I'm not even sure they've put them all back yet). But now a bunch of other major publishers are saying they want the same deal, and Amazon is threatening to pull the Buy buttons on them.
Really, this is a struggle between Amazon and publishers. Apple is just a battlefield, chosen because the iPad is the only e-reader that can strongly compete with the Kindle. If publishers tried to do this fight with the Nook, Amazon would've just laughed at them.
It really depends on the company. A smart company with good development processes and strong communication between developer groups will not only recycle the code, but will already have been using common libraries written by others in the company.
On the other end, in companies with little communication, or programmers who think they can do it better/faster from scratch, old code is hardly looked at and often lost forever.
And past that you've got the government, which starts from scratch multiple times within each project. I was on a government project once only to find we were working on the fourth version of a program that had never been finished and didn't work. A few weeks in we discovered why as the government insisted we use a certain third-party development software and ignored all of our warnings that it would never do what they wanted it to do.
After banging our heads against the wall trying to warn them, we eventually gave up and played the CYA game, reminding ourselves that we still got paid even if the project never worked.
they're willing to take the chance that the naked photos of themselves that they're storing in their hosted email account could be publically released?
Why are you storing naked photos of yourself at all?
Thanks for pointing this out, and for bringing up the verb "to be." This is, by default, the oldest verb in any language (except perhaps Russian, which they tell me doesn't have it), and therefore the most irregular.
Based on this, I have formulated the theory that "to be" is irregular in every language (that has it). In good scientific methodology, I am seeking out evidence to the contrary. Can anyone provide any?
In Thai, as in some other Asian languages, they do not conjugate verbs at all and therefore do not have irregular verbs. Although I guess that isn't exactly contrary evidence. Someone in this deep thread of comments mentioned that one should not try to deduce things about "language" by looking at just one language. I would add that to truly learn about language, you need to look at multiple language families as well.
The "Baldur's Gate family" of games is a term meant to encompass all games that used the Infinity Engine, specifically: Baldur's Gate 1, 2, and expansions; Planescape: Torment; and Icewind Dale 1, 2, and expansions.
What all of these games have in common is the Infinity Engine and the D&D universe created by TSR. Baldur's Gate was created by Bioware, as you said, and was meant to more or less "bring back" CRPG's to the classic D&D adventures of old. Torment was created by Black Isle and was meant to be as far from traditional high fantasy as possible. To that end, it took place in the Planescape setting, a little known aspect of the D&D universe but very much a part of it. Icewind Dale was also created by Black Isle and was intended to be (no joke) "Diablo with a story". The developers of Icewind Dale wanted to use the tactical aspects of the Infinity Engine to create a hack-and-slash game with some brains.
The folks at Black Isle did modify the Infinity Engine to create Torment, but then the engine was also modified for each new game and expansion. Bioware modified it for Tales of the Sword Coast and (obviously) BG 2, and Black Isle modified it again for Icewind Dale. Modifying the engine does not make the games any less family. It just means there were programmers who wanted to do more with the engine than was originally done (which any good programmer would do).
Finally, I think it's really sad that because Torment relied more on dialogue than combat, you could say it's "barely even a CRPG". I can't think of a single definition of CRPG that Torment doesn't fit well. It has tactical combat, it has a character to role-play in any way you want, it has a story that's more open-ended than most, it even has dice... in what way is it *not* a CRPG, exactly?
It's the same thing that Blizzard has always said about their games. They will release it when it's finished, rather than releasing a less-than-spectacular product based on market-driven factors.
Where's my cookie?
...or does this news post seem more like an ad than news? 83% of it is just blather from some journalist whose seems as far from being a Slashdotter as I am from being a Chinese jet pilot.
The fact that Linux is free is huge, but speaking for myself, there's nothing I hate worse than reinstalling the OS and all my programs. So even if I loved Linux, I would use Windows because it came with my new computer and it works - now.
To tie this to the article, I think he's right. If I can get everything I need for free on Windows, why should I bother to move to Linux? I can't get a computer without Windows on it unless I build it myself, so why would I go through all that trouble when my computer works fine the way it is?
What Linux needs is software that looks and acts just like Windows software (the way Firefox looks and acts just like IE for the first-time user), but is free and not available on Windows. And it really needs to get pre-installed on consumer-available machines and then start advertising that, from the user's perspective, it is no different from Windows and will create no trouble for someone bringing all their files from Windows.
...I know the web address for a secret no-spam list that the spammers don't want you to know about. If you enter your e-mail address onto this list it will automatically unsubscribe you from spammers' lists around the world. You may never receive spam again!
To receive this URL, just send $5 to aheine@hotmial.com using Paypal, and within 24 hours you too can be spam-free!
Theoretically, the usefulness of a psychic is determined by what one can do to prepare for an event, that one knows is coming, based on the psychic's prediction. But if I have to do vector calculus and word jumbles to figure out what a prophecy might mean (and even after doing that, it could mean a number of things) what good is that to me? I'll take my chances with blind fate, it's statistically about as predictive as what Sollog seems to be doing.
The Wikipedia article currently mentions a Sollog follower who said "something" would happen "tomorrow" - supposedly referencing 9/11. Even if his prediction *did* mean 9/11 was coming, if I read that post on 8/31 what good would it do me? Even if I assume "something" means "something big", how do I use such a vague prediction for my benefit? If a prediction cannot benefit those who hear it, what's the purpose of making the prediction at all?
The answer I'm dancing around is that I think Sollog is just in it for his own ego and publicity. If that's true, then this whole Wikipedia mess is actually benefitting him by giving him *more* publicity. The answer here is to probably just ignore him completely.
Except for people who are (or would make) good/. readers, everyone I've ever seen try Firefox has said, in one form or another, "What's the difference?"
Firefox has done a great job emulating IE to the point where making the switch is easy, but aside from being more secure (which, to a casual user, is a phrase accepted on trust alone) there is no immediate benefit to it. A tutorial explaining tabbed browsing (how to use it and its benefits), live bookmarks, and other features that might interest casual users might help.
Slashdot Mirror
I think most people who actually followed the link wouldn't believe them either. From TFA: "...Bluetooth...is permitted, for 'Blue was the color of the eyes of our savior Jesus Christ'."
It wouldn't surprise me at all if he was completely selling out now.
Now?
Because when B&N's Nook came out, nobody talked about changing e-book prices. They sold at $9.99 everywhere, mostly because that's what Amazon said e-books should sell at. Publishers got the same cut they always do with this pricing, and Amazon took a bigger loss than on print books. But Amazon liked this pricing because it's a loss leader for them to sell Kindles.
Macmillan (along with other publishers) was concerned that $9.99 was unsustainable in the long run, yet would become the "normal" price for e-books if unchecked. They wanted a deal where publishers chose e-book prices (usually in a range from $5.99-$14.99), and the sellers (Amazon, Apple, etc.) got a larger cut. Apple said, "Sure." Amazon said, "No way," and just to show Macmillan who was boss, Amazon pulled the Buy buttons off of all Macmillan products, digital and print. That was 1.5 months ago.
Amazon eventually caved and said they would put the Buy buttons back (which they did, but very slowly; I'm not even sure they've put them all back yet). But now a bunch of other major publishers are saying they want the same deal, and Amazon is threatening to pull the Buy buttons on them.
Really, this is a struggle between Amazon and publishers. Apple is just a battlefield, chosen because the iPad is the only e-reader that can strongly compete with the Kindle. If publishers tried to do this fight with the Nook, Amazon would've just laughed at them.
On the other end, in companies with little communication, or programmers who think they can do it better/faster from scratch, old code is hardly looked at and often lost forever.
And past that you've got the government, which starts from scratch multiple times within each project. I was on a government project once only to find we were working on the fourth version of a program that had never been finished and didn't work. A few weeks in we discovered why as the government insisted we use a certain third-party development software and ignored all of our warnings that it would never do what they wanted it to do.
After banging our heads against the wall trying to warn them, we eventually gave up and played the CYA game, reminding ourselves that we still got paid even if the project never worked.
The "Baldur's Gate family" of games is a term meant to encompass all games that used the Infinity Engine, specifically: Baldur's Gate 1, 2, and expansions; Planescape: Torment; and Icewind Dale 1, 2, and expansions.
What all of these games have in common is the Infinity Engine and the D&D universe created by TSR. Baldur's Gate was created by Bioware, as you said, and was meant to more or less "bring back" CRPG's to the classic D&D adventures of old. Torment was created by Black Isle and was meant to be as far from traditional high fantasy as possible. To that end, it took place in the Planescape setting, a little known aspect of the D&D universe but very much a part of it. Icewind Dale was also created by Black Isle and was intended to be (no joke) "Diablo with a story". The developers of Icewind Dale wanted to use the tactical aspects of the Infinity Engine to create a hack-and-slash game with some brains.
The folks at Black Isle did modify the Infinity Engine to create Torment, but then the engine was also modified for each new game and expansion. Bioware modified it for Tales of the Sword Coast and (obviously) BG 2, and Black Isle modified it again for Icewind Dale. Modifying the engine does not make the games any less family. It just means there were programmers who wanted to do more with the engine than was originally done (which any good programmer would do).
Finally, I think it's really sad that because Torment relied more on dialogue than combat, you could say it's "barely even a CRPG". I can't think of a single definition of CRPG that Torment doesn't fit well. It has tactical combat, it has a character to role-play in any way you want, it has a story that's more open-ended than most, it even has dice... in what way is it *not* a CRPG, exactly?
It's the same thing that Blizzard has always said about their games. They will release it when it's finished, rather than releasing a less-than-spectacular product based on market-driven factors. Where's my cookie?
...or does this news post seem more like an ad than news? 83% of it is just blather from some journalist whose seems as far from being a Slashdotter as I am from being a Chinese jet pilot.
...why hasn't anyone made an open-source toaster so I can write my own toasting OS?
To tie this to the article, I think he's right. If I can get everything I need for free on Windows, why should I bother to move to Linux? I can't get a computer without Windows on it unless I build it myself, so why would I go through all that trouble when my computer works fine the way it is?
What Linux needs is software that looks and acts just like Windows software (the way Firefox looks and acts just like IE for the first-time user), but is free and not available on Windows. And it really needs to get pre-installed on consumer-available machines and then start advertising that, from the user's perspective, it is no different from Windows and will create no trouble for someone bringing all their files from Windows.
To receive this URL, just send $5 to aheine@hotmial.com using Paypal, and within 24 hours you too can be spam-free!
The Wikipedia article currently mentions a Sollog follower who said "something" would happen "tomorrow" - supposedly referencing 9/11. Even if his prediction *did* mean 9/11 was coming, if I read that post on 8/31 what good would it do me? Even if I assume "something" means "something big", how do I use such a vague prediction for my benefit? If a prediction cannot benefit those who hear it, what's the purpose of making the prediction at all?
The answer I'm dancing around is that I think Sollog is just in it for his own ego and publicity. If that's true, then this whole Wikipedia mess is actually benefitting him by giving him *more* publicity. The answer here is to probably just ignore him completely.
Except for people who are (or would make) good /. readers, everyone I've ever seen try Firefox has said, in one form or another, "What's the difference?"
Firefox has done a great job emulating IE to the point where making the switch is easy, but aside from being more secure (which, to a casual user, is a phrase accepted on trust alone) there is no immediate benefit to it. A tutorial explaining tabbed browsing (how to use it and its benefits), live bookmarks, and other features that might interest casual users might help.